USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II > Part 62
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730
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
hind. It is impossible to describe a battle correctly. Every one has a different story to tell. Some had very narrow es- capes. Captain Carson had three bullet holes in his hat. Uncle S --- had a bullet pass through his coat sleeve. I didn't get a scratch. No one knows how many narrow cs- capes he has in battle. It was a sad, sad sight to see the dead and dying on the battle field. The Rebel wounded couldn't all be taken off till this morning. They lay from four o'clock in the hot sun. One poor fellow prayed for help, another, too far gone to pray for help from us, I heard utter- ing his last prayer. He was dead this morning.
"No doubt we made a good fight of it. It might have been better, to be sure. If we hadn't faltered we would have accomplished more, but if we had not advanced at all from the cedar knoll we would undoubtedly have lost the batteries on our right and left, and many prisoners, and perhaps been defeated.
"July 23. General Ward is proud of his old brigade. He rides a large, splendid looking horse, and is of pretty good size himself. When excited he pulls at his tremendous gloves. He was greatly excited when we commenced driving the Rebels, and jerking first at one glove, then the other, hic called out to his aid, Lieutenant Harryman, of our regiment, ' Ha'yman! Ha'yman! Come hea'. Look how the Fust brigade, my old brigade, goes in!' 'Some one tells a good story of General Thomas. He was standing on a hill on the opposite side of the creek. He is always working at his short, thick whiskers. When satisfied, he smooths them down, when troubled he works them all out of shape. The Rebels advancing on us, and we on them, we met in a hol- low between the cedar knoll and the hill we afterward occu- pied. The General could see neither party, and it was at that very moment, when our right and left, fighting in the woods, scemed ready to give way, he had his whiskers all out of shape. He gave orders to his body-guard to hold the bridge across Peach Tree creek, and cut down any armed soldier who attempted to cross. But when he saw the Reb- els running, with us after them, he took off his hat and slung it on the ground, and shouted, ' Hurrah! Look at the Third
731
HOOD ASSAULTS A SECOND TIME.
division! They're driving them" His whiskers were soon in good shape again.
"I can hardly understand why the Rebels lost so many. They had a long way to charge, but it was a fair, open field fight. The most of them were shot after they started to run. Thirty-four Rebels were buried on the ground our regiment occupied. We lost only five killed. I think that is the pro- portion of the loss. L. K."
It was announced along Hooker's front that Sherman de- clared Atlanta won if Peach Tree Heights, on which the tri- umphant but exhausted troops now rested, could be held two hours longer. The message exalted our Seventieth, and doubtless other regiments, to a fierce enthusiasm. "We'll die right here!" cried the heroes. And they knew what it was to die, with death in every hideous shape about them, and hearts which had beaten in unison with theirs at the out- set of the charge, already stilled forever. But the Rebels re- turned no more. Their repulse was so severe that it drove them into and beyond their fortifications on the hills of Peach Tree creek. Nor was Atlanta won. Its last and strongest line of defence remained.
Five thousand men left on the field attested the strength and desperation of Hood's assault. Sherman's loss was sev- enteen hundred and eighty-three, and largely in Hooker's corps.
The army pressed fiercely after the enemy, Thomas from the north, McPherson and Schofield from the east and north- east. On the twenty-second, a day of exhausting heat, Hood repeated the battle of the twentieth, flinging his army, ex- cept barely sufficient troops to hold the intrenchments, on Sherman's converging lines. At the first onset McPherson, "the brave, chivalrous and beautiful," was slain, and the rear of the extreme left was threatened. Six death-defying as- saults on front, and right and left, of the Army of the Ten- nessee, followed. The Rebels leaped over the works. They forced back the defenders by companies. Their daring knew no restraint. But their success was not of long duration. They were cast back from the trenches with a resolve which
732
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
matched their desperation, and were forced by the coming of night to cease their efforts. Morning showed two thou- sand two hundred dead Rebels close before our lines.
Sherman was now within three miles of Atlanta. His long range guns fired into the city. The Twenty-Second battery claims to have sent the first Yankce shells into the streets. Reconnoissances, skirmishes, raids and fights along the close and heavy picket lines varied the regular approaches of a siege. New lines were constantly made. Troops were constantly shifted from one point to another.
"CAMP OF THE SEVENTIETH, August 5.
" I had to make details last night at nine, cleven, two and five o'clock, to work on a new line of trenches. We have just occupied them this morning. This makes the third, and in some places the fourth line of works. We are creeping in on them. Will dig our way either in or around the city. We were on the extreme right three days ago, are now near the centre. A heavy old siege gun sends a shell into the city every five minutes as regular as a clock. It has been firing about thirty-six hours. The shell goes screeching and howling. The boys call it the Atlanta Express. L. K."
" NEAR EAST POINT, GEORGIA, - July 30, 1864.
"Saturday. The Rebels appear to us entirely heathenish, for they make no effort to remove their severely wounded, leaving them to fall into our hands after a day or two, and never exerting themselves in the least to bury their dead, who, when we find them, are most loathsome.
"Sunday. Just at twilight, the Thirty-Third band played 'Old Hundred' grandly. I am not often nowadays con- scious of being immortal, but as that glorious tune swelled forth, the past, the present, and the future seemed to melt into one, and all our loved who have gone before were with me listening.
"Of late I have been touched with pity for our deluded enemies. It is very sad to read letters written by men just before they died, or to see a corpse deserted by every one ex- cept a howling dog. S. M."
·
733
STONEMAN OVERPOWERED BY WHEELER.
"BEHIND THE LOGS, SUNDAY, August 15.
"A bullet just now went through my tent with force enough to have gone through ine twice over. We had three men killed day before yesterday, and two wounded yester- day by what are called stray bullets. I was affected, as the boys carried Johnnie Newton on a stretcher to the rear to die, by his calling out, 'Good bye, Colonel!' S. M."
On the fourth, the Eighty-Seventh lost seventeen men in an attempt to wrest from the enemy a prominent portion of his lines. On the seventh, one hundred and five mnen of the Eighty-Second, while on the skirmish line, lost twenty-six of their number.
Meantime, Sherman's cavalry was engaged on the enemy's line of communication. Garrard's division made an exten- sive and destructive raid on the Augusta railroad. On his return, Stoneman, with five thousand, including Garrard's force, and M'Cook, with four thousand, started out, the one west, the other east, to meet at Lovejoy's station, south of Atlanta, pursuant to tearing up the Macon railroad and pushing on to the relief of our suffering prisoners at Ander- sonville. Stoneman forgot the duty of a subordinate, and of a party to an agreement, and audaciously followed the dic- tates of his capricious judgment. He went as far cast as Cov- ington, destroying the Augusta railroad, and as far south as Macon, fighting and driving a body of the enemy and tear- ing up the road in the vicinity of that placc. August 31, on his return by the same route, he was attacked by Wheeler's cavalry. Perceiving that he was unable to cxtricate his whole command, with one brigade he absorbed the enemy's atten- tion while two brigades escaped. Hc then surrendered, to the chagrin of the force he had detained. Colonel Butler, of the Fifth, made a solemn protest. Two officers, forty-seven privates and two guns of the Twenty-Fourth battery were also included in the surrender. The Sixth cavalry, under the lead of Lieutenant Colonel Matson and Major Smith, cut its way out; but was afterwards attacked at night near Athens, and defeated, and many of the men were captured in squads. Major Smith was wounded and taken while gallantly at- tempting to rally a small detachment. Colonel Matson was
734
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
also captured. The brigades which were so fortunate as to effect their escape, reached the army north of Atlanta, one entire, the other in pieces. Garrard had already arrived, hav- ing in the beginning of the raid returned from Flat Rock, whither Stoneman had sent him.
M'Cook's part of the expedition is described by a member of the Eighteenth battery, which belonged to his divison:
"July 27, we marched at daylight, and crossed the Chatta- hoochie on pontoons at Mason's Ferry. Our force consisted of the First and Second brigades, which last included the Second and Fourth Indiana of our division, a brigade of Stoneman's, and one section of our battery, numbering in all about twenty-one hundred. The command was superbly mounted and marched without baggage of any kind. After taking up the pontoons we went down the river, reaching Cartersville at dark. At two in the morning marched six miles further down, and threw the pontoons across the river. Leaving them in charge of dismounted men, we struck boldly for the railroad. At dark we reached Palmetto, a small sta- tion on the Atlanta and West Point railroad. We tore up the road for three miles, burned three bridges and the depot, destroyed a train of cars laden with provisions, and buildings filled with commissary and quartermaster's stores. We con- tinued our march at eight in the evening toward Fayetteville, twenty-five miles further east, and a depot of supplies for the Rebel army. All night we passed almost noiselessly along, reaching Fayetteville just before dark.
"On the morning of the twenty-eighth we captured three hundred prisoners, with several hundred wagons laden with forage and commissary stores. Our march had been so noiseless, not a shot having been fired throughout the night, that we surrounded the Rebels, and were in their midst be- fore they were aware of it. They could hardly realize that we were Yankees until daylight made apparent our arms and uniform. We halted here only long enough to com- plete the destruction of the train, and to replace our jaded horses by fresh ones from the Rebel train, when we moved forward in an easterly direction, to the Atlanta and Macon railroad. As we were but twenty-five miles south of Atlanta,
735
M'COOK'S RAID.
of course reinforcements from that point would soon be after our command, and it behooved us to be rapid. We struck the railroad at Lovejoy's Station, twenty-four miles from At- lanta, and sixteen miles from Fayetteville. During our march from the latter place we captured several more supply trains, which ran into our column to avoid a large body of cavalry, making for the railroad, from the cast. The trains were burned. The prisoners we mounted on mules, and guarded near our centre. Two brigade generals and several colonels and lesser officers were among our prisoners. We remained four hours at Lovejoy's Station, and for the first time on that road fed our stock. We scattered several miles up and down the railroad, tearing up the track, and burning ties. When this work was completed our command fell into line, and retiring four miles, took a road leading south. All our column had filed past this cross road except part of the Eighth Iowa, when a large force of Rebel cavalry suddenly came upon it at the cross roads, cutting it in two, and capturing about twelve hundred. The First brigade formed and charged, but was driven baek. The Fourth Kentucky then formed a strong rear guard. But the roads were literally swarming with Rebels; not less than five thousand were on our track and around us. They had captured all the bridges across Sweet Water creek, a deep, muddy stream in our front. Captain Hill, with a battalion of the gallant Second Indiana, secured one of the bridges, which lay two miles south of us. We hastened up, crossed and directed our course toward the west, but soon found a strong Rebel force in our front. We halted, threw out skirmishers, secured a negro guide, and retraced our steps two miles. It was now night, and we succeeded in taking a by-road to the left of the main road, and in passing the principal Rebel force. Through the intelligence and loyalty of our guide our entire command escaped capture. We marched rapidly all night, avoiding the main roads, and traveling nearly west. About three o'clock on the morning of the twenty-ninth we came upon another Rebel train of fifty wagons, which we cut down, but did not burn for fear of betraying ourselves to our pur- suers. Our guns became entangled in the woods, as it was
736
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
intensely dark. General McCook ordered us to leave them, but actuated by the strange affection a soldier has for his arms, we refused, and after a half hour's delay we succeeded in getting them through, and on the road again. The exces- sive exertion of the two days and nights travel, without rest or food, overcame many. They gave out from sheer exhaus- tion. Our mules could scarcely be urged along, by coaxing or beating, when we crossed a stream of water, but orders were imperative not to stop for water or any other purpose. If a horse or a mule fell dead, the carriage was driven to the roadside, and a fresh animal put into the harness. The car- riage must regain its place as it could. The column was ordered to keep well closed up. But it was impossible in the darkness, and the Rebel prisoners, of whom we had now nearly nine hundred, kept constantly escaping, and did all in their power to mislead the troops at cross-roads and by-paths. Many squads were led off in this way. About eight in the morning we reached Newman, on the West Point railroad, having marched forty miles since we left Lovejoy. Our ad- vance made a dash at the town, but Rebel troops which had arrived a half hour previously from West Point, on the rail- road, had possession of the works, and forced us to retire. Our negro guide had gone beyond his reckoning. It was two hours before we found another road. We passed south of Newman two miles, and struck for the river, which we hoped to cross at Lodi, eight miles west of Newman. We had proceeded but four miles when our advance regiment was cut off and captured. The Second brigade formed in line, and drove the Rebel skirmishers a mile, when our col- umn was attacked simultaneously on our right and rear. We continued the unequal contest until near night. Our command had been whittled down on every side, until but twelve hundred remained. The cavalrymen used their last round of ammunition; we fired our last shell and our last stand of canister, when nothing was left us but to abandon our position. We chopped our gun carriages to pieces, spiked our guns, cut up our harness, fell in line, the cavalry, with drawn sabres, made a dash on the Rebel line, cut our way through, and traveled rapidly southward to Corinth,
737
SHERMAN BEGINS TO FLANK ATLANTA.
twenty miles, and west to the river, which we reached near midnight, burning the bridges behind us. We found an old flat-boat, in which men and accoutrements were ferried over, while the horses swam. As the ferrying was slow and tedi- ous, many built rafts of rails, and swam the river, pushing these before them with their saddles and arms. By eight. the morning of the thirtieth the majority of the troops had crossed. Those who had not were captured. Our command moved up, took a westerly course, and marching forty miles, encamped at eight in the evening at Wedowee, Alabama. We started at daylight the next morning, and passing through a rough, hilly country, arrived at Marietta August 4."
The Eighth Indiana was the only regiment which pre- served its organization in this unfortunate raid.
After the death of General MePherson several important changes took place among the officers of Sherman's army. Howard assumed command of the Army of the Tennessee. He was succeeded in the Fourth corps by Stanley, whose division was delivered over to Brigadier General Kimball. Hooker resigned, and was succeeded by Slocum. Palmer was relieved, and was succeeded by Davis.
On the night of July 26, Sherman began a general move- ment, by the right flank, to cut the railroad in the rear of Atlanta. Howard's army made the initiatory step by mov- ing round the rear from the left to the right. It was scarcely in position before it received a tremendous blow. About noon of the twenty-eighth Hood once more madly assaulted. A heavy cannonade opened the battle as usual. The Rebel masses formed behind a swell of ground. They advanced in parallel lines, and with splendid assurance, up open, sloping fields, against Logan's corps, which was on Howard's right, expecting to catch it exposed. But Logan's well tried troops, , standing on the crest of a wooded ridge, and behind trenches dug with bayonets and tin-plates, and breastworks of rails, piled up after indications of the enemy's purpose, with their right refused, and with Blair and Dodge ready to advance to their support, were masters of the situation. With a steady volley they broke the enemy's front, broke it again
47
738
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA ..
when it was restored, and shattered it or cut it down at every return. At some points, as often as six times they hurled it back. They dragged over defences, or killed in their front, men and officers who were goaded to the top of the ridge, or who, confounded by terror, ran here and there, and round and round, not knowing whither to fly. Harrow's division, hold- ing the right flank, was enveloped in a continual blaze of fire. Trees several inches in diameter were cut down by bullets. No artillery was engaged. At four the enemy, except six thousand dead, wounded and captured, disappeared. Sher- man lost but five hundred and seventy-two, and suffered no delay in his flanking manœuvres.
Schofield followed Howard from the left and took up a po- sition on the extreme right; where, however, his flank was constantly annoyed and threatened by a heavy Rebel force with artillery on two hills. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to clear the hills. At length, on the sixth of August, a brigade from each of his divisions pushed through a dense thicket of pines and oaks, and emerging into an open field, ran to the position under a rain of artillery and musketry, and carried it, though many fell in the woods and very many in the field.
Discovering that Hood had weakened his cavalry by send- ing Wheeler on a raid, Sherman was tempted to a deviation from his plan, as far as regarded moving in full force round Atlanta, and he sent Kilpatrick with five thousand cavalry to break the railroads. Kilpatrick made the circuit, but with so little success as to compel the resumption of the original movement. At night of August 25, Slocum, with the Twen- tieth corps, took all the sick and wounded, and the surplus wagons, and went back to the Chattahoochie to protect com- munications, also to give the appearance of retreat. The in- fatuated enemy saw the movement with delight, and Hood enjoyed a wild but short-lived triumph. Meantime Sherman's army, with fifteen days rations, Howard on the right, Thomas in the centre and Schofield on the left, marched round to the south of the city. Schofield being near the city, moved with special caution, but reached the Atlanta and Macon railroad at Rough and Ready the night of the thirtieth,
739
BATTLE OF JONESBORO.
unobserved, and of course, unopposed. Thomas, also unop- posed, reached Couch's station. Howard pushed back skirm- ishers throughout the thirtieth, and assured that the enemy was in foree in his front, halted a half mile from the railroad and formed his lines to resist assault,-the Fifteenth corps advanced and on a commanding hill, the Sixteenth on his right, the Seventeenth on his left. He intrenched strongly. Early the next day Thomas and Schofield set to work at tearing up the railroad, a kind of destruction in which Sher- man's troops were adepts, while Howard, relying upon his own strength, awaited attack.
The Rebel army had been divided in consequence of Kil- patrick's raid, half, under Hardee, having been removed to Jonesboro, whence it now advanced, without Hood's daunt- less presence, but with an equally reckless courage. After repeated and unsuccessful assaults, Hardee at length sub- mitted to be driven behind his intrenchments and held there, while Davis moved down from the centre, relieved Blair and began a vigorous attack. After a two hours' struggle, Davis stormed the works, capturing two batteries, one of which was Loomis', lost at Chickamauga, and many prisoners, but fail- ing to hold Hardee with his main force. The Thirty-Eighth distinguished itself in the battle of Jonesboro, carrying the works in its front, but losing heavily. The color bearer was killed within the fortifications, and the colors were seized by Lieutenant Redding, who carried them the rest of the day. Captain Osborne was slain. The Twenty-Second also suf- fered severely.
At midnight the ground shook with explosions, which, coming from the direction of Atlanta, indicated that Hood acknowledged himself hopelessly outflanked and was pre- paring to escape. Sherman however, went on after Hardee, finding him intrenched seven miles down the railroad at Lovejoy's. In the afternoon of September 2, Wood's di- vision assaulted, advancing a hundred yards over abatis, capturing skirmish pits and skirmishers, and pushing across an open field under a withering fire. The Seventy-Ninth, in the front line of its brigade, came within two hundred yards of the works. The troops of the division bivouacked
740
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
with their arms in their hands, and remained in advance till the fourth, when Sherman withdrew. The Eighty-Sixth, left on the skirmish line to guard the rear of its brigade, crept out of the ditches at midnight in the rain, under the constant fire of pickets, and with both flanks exposed, and made its way through woods and streams, overtaking the army at daylight. Sherman found at Atlanta, Colonel Coburn, who had ad- vaneed from the Chattahoochie on the first of September, the morning after the explosion. Thomas' troops encamped in the vicinity of Atlanta. Howard's army encamped at East Point and Schofield's found rest at Decatur. Never was rest more fairly won, never was victory more complete, and never did a more magnificent army elaim the result of its labors. In number it was not less than at the outset of the campaign, one hundred thousand men. In character and also in aspect it was vastly finer. Four months of climbing mountains, thread- ing forests, wading and bridging rivers, lying in trenches and scaling fortifications, under a fire so constant, so penetrating and so pitiless, that day was scareely noisier than night, the front scarcely more exposed than the rear, and the battle hardly more deadly than the march and the bivouae, men being shot as they slept in their tents, and passing away with a single sigh,-four such months had embrowned the faces, toughened the muscles and sharpened the wits of the soldiers and had curiously, often nobly developed, their inner natures.
" You can't tell," says an officer of the Seventieth, "any- thing about a man, until he is tried. There was in our regi- ment a long, loose, gawky, open-mouthed, simple fellow, just the idea of a Hoosier, who was astonishingly changed by the thunder and blood of Resaca. He was a new man. His eyes were bright. His face was thoughtful. He even moved with a manliness, which you might call dignity. He continued to improve and develope until he fell at Peach Tree ercek. I venture to say that man lived more in his last three months than in all the twenty preceding years. I've seen many another, fine at talking, good at understanding, right enough in feeling, lose command of himself, and slink to the rear, to be ordered with scorn and curses to the picket line in front."
741
PROPORTION OF LOSS IN THE STATE TROOPS.
The army had lost immensely. While a vast number had been killed outright, a very large proportion of the wounded had died, especially among the troops who had undergone the hardships of the East Tennessee campaign. Fevers also had carried away many of the best men. The figures which indicate the wounded and dead may be uninteresting to those who had no personal friends in the army, or, who are not blessed with the power of sympathy, but they represent infinite loss and grief. The aggregate loss of seventeen regi- ments,-the Twelfth, Thirty-Sixth, Thirtieth, Sixty-Third. Thirty-Fifth, Twenty-Seventh, Thirty-Eighth, Thirty-Third, Forty-Second, Sixty-Fifth, Seventieth, Seventy-Fourth, Eighty-Eighth, Ninety-Ninth, Eightieth, Seventy-First and Fifty-Seventh,-was two thousand three hundred and sixty- four. The regiment which suffered least lost thirty-nine. The regiment which suffered most, the Thirty-Third, lost three hundred. The other troops in the campaign, all los- ing at the same rate, were the Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, Twenty- Second, Thirty-First, Thirty-Second, Thirty-Seventh, Forti- eth, Forty-Second, Fifty-Eighth, Sixty-Sixth, Seventy-Fifth, Eighty-First, Eighty-Second, Eighty-Third, Eighty-Fourth, Eighty-Fifth, Eighty-Sixth, Eighty-Seventh, Ninety-Seventh, One Hundredth, One Hundred and First, One Hundred and Twentieth, One Hundred and Twenty-Third, One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth, One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth, One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth, and One Hundred and Thirtieth, which were in the entire campaign, the Twenty- Third, Fifty-Third and Ninety-First, which joined the army June G, at Acworth, and the Twenty-Fifth, which came in August 8, infantry regiments; the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, the Seventeenth, which included the veterans of the Fifteenth, the Seventy-Second and Klein's battalion of cavalry; the Fifth, Seventh, Eleventh, Fifteenth, Eight- eenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-Second, Twenty- Third and Twenty-Fourth batteries. The Fifty-Eighth regiment was in the engineer department, and had charge of the pontoon trains, bridging the rivers often in the face of the enemy, and some of them as many as sixteen times.
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